California’s governor, Jerry Brown, has been a strong
advocate for measures to limit greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions and combat climate
change. He demonstrated leadership in face of the US withdrawal from the Paris
Agreement by President Trump by speaking out and letting the world know that
many cities and states in the US will still abide by those pledges. He led a
delegation with major industry leaders to China to explore co-operative
ventures. Just this week, on July 25, he signed a major climate bill, AB 398,
which will extend California’s cap-and-trade system for ghg to 2030. Gov. Brown
never misses an opportunity to remind us that implementing measures to combat
climate change has not hurt California’s economy, instead it has made it
stronger and resilient.
Thus far, switching from coal to natural gas has been the
main contributor towards reduced emissions in CA. However, this model is not a
recipe for curbing emissions in energy-impoverished societies where most of the
growth in energy consumption is expected. Because they are not profligate
consumers of energy, there is very little room for gain by increasing
efficiency. As they strive to improve their standard of living they will need
to sharply increase the total supply of energy. And remember, emissions do not
know state or national boundaries, and California is responsible for barely 1%
of global ghg emissions. What California needs to do is develop innovative
technologies that avoid carbon emissions at a cost that makes a compelling case
for their widespread adoption.
There is a growing global and national need for carbon-free
electricity. Even in CA, electricity demand is expected to increase. Additional
electricity required to power the projected 1.5 million EVs is 12.6 TWh per
year. California’s IT industry also requires large amounts of electricity.
Cloud services by Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and others require 10s of TWh of
reliable electricity each year. To put these numbers in perspective, CA
consumed 220 TWh of electricity in 2014. Bulk of this electricity (120 TWh) used
in CA was generated from natural gas. Coal contributed only about 20 TWh; it
was mostly imported from other states as the in-state production of coal power
has all but disappeared. Wind, solar, geo thermal, and hydroelectric power
generate relatively smaller amounts: 13, 10, 12 and 17 TWh respectively.
Nuclear power is one technology that can produce copious
quantities of carbon-free electricity. California used to have three nuclear
power plant facilities generating about 44 TWh carbon-free electricity; however,
two of them have already been closed and there are talks of decommissioning the
third one at Diablo Canyon, which last year generated 17 TWh of electricity. In
view of the increasing demand for carbon-free electricity, I find plans to turn
off nuclear plants misguided. Germany’s attempt to cut greenhouse gas emissions
have essentially stalled after it turned off its nuclear power plants.
Existing plants should be re-certified and the development
of new inherently safe nuclear power technologies needs to be supported. I am
heartened to see construction of the such plants in China and India. It would
be nice if such development also took place in the U.S., but that is not likely
given the strong anti-nuclear sentiment. This attitude feeds into the “business
risk” and renders financing nuclear projects impossible. We must remember that
nuclear power has the smallest environmental footprint and is the safest source
of energy with the least number of casualties per unit of electricity produced.
A first step CA could undertake is to qualify nuclear power to
receive the carbon credits that afforded wind and solar power. This action
would make nuclear power more competitive. It would also send a signal to the
companies developing advanced nuclear technologies that they are welcome in CA
to develop their innovative technologies for both domestic use and for export.
